Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

As Fast As You Can

Did I mention this? Probably not. It’s been a minute since I posted here. It started in December. A friend asked me if I’d consider running with her. She was transitioning between a gym and a personal trainer and was considering just saving all that money and switching up her fitness routine by running instead.

I had never considered running. I was always one of those people who joked that if you saw me running, it was probably the zombie apocolypse. But I had really loved going on early-morning walks with this friend (we had worked our way up to 3 miles a day, 4-5 days a week) so I said yes.

I started reading a little bit, I made sure my walking shoes were okay to run in. I bought a headband-ear-warmer thing, and when January 1st rolled around I texted her. “Running tomorrow?”

Err, umm, actually, no. She had found a different gym and wasn’t going to do the running idea after all.

Well, poop. I had psyched myself up for it! I wanted to see if I could do it! So… I did it.

At first, I couldn’t run a full mile without stopping to walk. I used a highly scientific method for “training.” I left my house walking until I felt like I needed to jog. Then I jogged along until I felt like I was going to throw up, at which point I downshifted to walking again. I made myself get outside as often as the weather cooperated.

In January, that was about 4 runs. And in February it was only about 5 runs. But the weather turned pretty eventually, and in March and April I started to really be able to go running with consistency. I started challenging myself for little victories: the first time I ran a full mile without walking! the first time I ran a 5K distance (3.11 miles)! I got an app that tracked my distance, and as I saw my miles tick toward 100, I realized something:

I like this.

As workouts go, I can’t rave about it the way I did P90x3. I did that workout for 90(ish) days and saw insane results. With running – well, see, I want to run a few times a week and still eat pie. So, I haven’t made any big shifts to make myself overhaul my nutrition the way I did during X3. Also, I did x3 six days a week almost every week. With running, I get out there between 3 and 5 days a week. I have lost a couple of pounds, I have lost a couple of inches, but nothing drastic or noticeable to most people.

I like it as a hobby. I like it as something FUN to do. And I think that’s what has made the difference. I’ve never had a physical activity that I’ve stuck with for this long. I’m eight months in to running, getting close to the 200 mile mark, and I really don’t want to quit.

The problem with X3 was that there was this wall. “Day 90 = The End” With running, I don’t feel like that. I’m going to try to run a 15K race next month, and I’m a teensy bit worried that part of my brain will feel like the finish line means it’s time to be finished… but on the other hand, there’s always another race to train for. 😉 (See, now I understand a little bit what all those crazy running type people were talking about all these years.)